beauty
by highboys
Summary: Genderswitch France/Canada: on beauty and fidelity.


**Title:** beauty  
**Fandom:** Axis Powers Hetalia  
**Characters:** France/Canada  
For **maplesandroses** ' 2010 gift-a-thon prompt #59.

Above all things, there is beauty to think of.

i.

Françoise opens her eyes to the soft press of fingers to her cheek, the swell of breasts and the weight of Mathilde's hip digging into her limbs. She waits for a beat, counts the seconds in between the slight throb of a pulse.

"Mathilde," she whispers. The name rolls off her tongue and makes something in her chest shudder with the sound.

Mathilde shifts in her sleep, crinkles her nose in irritation. Françoise thinks she hears Alfred's name muttered with the indignation of a thousand angry suns, but she could be mistaken. Françoise lingers, watching Mathilde burrow under the covers, and lets her ankle brush against Mathilde's heel, smiling at the slightest trembling of Mathilde's feet.

"Good morning," Françoise says, all sweetness, all feigned artlessness.

"Is it my turn to make breakfast?" Mathilde asks, groggily feeling for her glasses by the bedside table.

"Yes," Françoise says. If Mathilde notices the lie, she does not show it, and Françoise thinks it would be nice, if Mathilde forgets it with the bevy of kisses Françoise showers on her cheeks, her jaw, her wonderful mouth.

"You're too spoiled," Mathilde says, her eyes bright with her smile, and Françoise laughs.

ii.

Mathilde cracks an egg on the edge of a plastic bowl, a trail of egg white smeared across her knuckles. Françoise wants to kiss the arc of the slight bone, wants to mouth indecencies into her skin.

Something glints against Mathilde's skin. Françoise averts her eyes, rises and stretches until the strap of her negligee falls off her shoulder when she knows Mathilde is watching. "Breakfast can wait," Françoise says, and the smile spreading across her lips is impish, almost daring.

"But your sheets," Mathilde frets, even as Françoise pries the spatula out of Mathilde's fingers. Mathilde's nails brush against the red of Françoise's manicured ones, and Françoise dips her head lower to nudge at Mathilde's blouse, to worry at her collar.

"I," _love you_, "want you," Françoise says, and relishes in the hitch of Mathilde's breath, the gasp Françoise swallows with her mouth.

iii.

All men are beautiful, and Françoise is a lover of beauty. But there are things men cannot do, things Françoise can only find in women. Pleasure, for one. There is more gentleness even in the twist of Mathilde's fingers, the violence in her mouth, than there is in Arthur's fumbling words, in the slope of Gilbert's back, in the quiet of Antonio's smile.

- and there is always one woman in her world. Many men, but only one woman. As for Mathilde -

"You bruise easily," Mathilde says, voice of child-like wonder, all girlishness and no measured words, no trace of condescension.

"You're too rough, my darling," Françoise says. Tucks her hair behind her ear. Lowers her head and does not meet Mathilde's eyes. How many times has she said this. How many minutes has it taken to perfect the art. "Like a young, eager boy."

Mathilde leans against Françoise, her curls brushing Françoise's shoulder. "I could be one," she says, shyly, "for you."

Mathilde would make an awkward boy, then. Her shyness would be her weakness, her clumsiness a rarely endearing trait. But Françoise would still love her, perhaps. In another space, in another time, Françoise would still like to chart her territory on his body.

"You are too much," Françoise says. She does not tell Mathilde it makes her heart hurt far too much.

iv.

Françoise kicks the sheets off the mattress, absently smoothing down the tangles in Mathilde's hair. Mathilde's body has not yet cooled and still she is a flurry of activity, yanking on her flats and checking her dress for stains. Françoise would brush her hair for her, if Mathilde would ask her to, but Mathilde is too distracted that it makes Françoise feel...

Lonely. It is a feeling Françoise knows too well. She curls into herself and waits until Mathilde notices, until Mathilde would cover her with blankets.

"I'm sorry," Mathilde says, tucking her purse to her side, "my husband will be home soon."

"I know," Françoise says, gently. She is never angry, not outwardly, because she has no right. Mathilde is beautiful when she is the most cruel.

"Tomorrow," Mathilde promises, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and Françoise stares at her until she disappears behind the door, away from Françoise's touch.

Françoise shuts her eyes, clenches her fingers into a fist. Not enough, never enough, but for now, it should suffice.


End file.
